TMI?
Personal stuff
Now relegated to Blogblivion...Friday, September 08, 2006
Happy Birthday
To blogger Tim at My Money Forest. Ah, to be a mere 26 again…
Speaking of being younger, seeing the abbreviation MMF reminds me of the days when we’d all go to Applebee’s periodically after work, or have going away parties there for departing colleagues. In the early days, the usual bartender was a young woman named Jody. I was introduced to a drink that was a specialty of hers, best ordered when she was there because nobody else could make it half as well. It was called a Mongolian Motherfucker, or MMF for short. It amused the waitresses sometimes to make me ask for it by its full name, rather than its initials. It was delicious, but very strong, based on Midori, with whatever the blue stuff is called, a couple other alcohols, and I think a bit of sour mix as the only thing that wasn’t alcohol in it. My alternate drink of choice at the time was their amazing frozen mudslides, better than I have had anywhere else, and probably about 1500 calories each. Somewhere among my non-digital pictures I have one of our bartender buddy sitting on the lap of one of my colleagues. Those were the days.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Home Office Tips?
I noticed in the latest CotC that Dane Carlson had a post titled 6 Tips for Working at Home With Children. Obviously this is of great interest to me, since I partially work at home, and not just blogging, to the extent that involves money.
Item one was a consideration in selecting this apartment. It’s also used for the bulk of the book shelves and some storage, and it’s not always off-limits, but I do have an office room with a door that can be closed at need. I should probably do so more than I do, but most of my work at home is simply being available and able to respond to e-mails.
All too many of those go something like:
Them: “Help! My computer barfed!”
Me: “What were you doing when it barfed? What did the barf look like? Did you try anything to clean the barf up yourself, or to prevent it from happening again? Isn’t this like the barf that rebooting solves? Let me know and we’ll go from there.”
Several days go by…
Them: “Hey, my computer’s still barfy. Please fix.”
Me: “But you gave me no information to even know what to look at.”
Them: “I don’t have time to know anything about how a car computer works! I just need it to drive me to do my work! You’re confusing me.”
Tip number two is superlative. Merely having music is a big help. In fact, I have long been fascinated by the way music acts on my brain to make me focus. It is almost like flipping a switch.
Sadly, my headphones died months ago and I have yet to replace them. I miss them most late at night if I am up and at the computer. I already sometimes avoided using them so I could easily be called into another room to help with the kids. But then, that’s not hard core working at home when I can be that available.
One of these days I’ll get a new headset. It really is useful, and probably worth the money for a better one than I had. If playing music is like flipping a switch, doing it with a headset is like putting my brain into turbo mode.
The third tip is tougher, because it all depends. I am on call theoretically 24/7, and in reality 10/5, with certain stuff I can’t do at home done best on weekends and in evenings. When I am working hardcore at home, it’s usually an all-hours, nonstop as I can handle project, so there goes having a normal schedule. When it’s lower grade, it’s such a work/home mix as to moot the “work hours” thing. If I were working more regularly and busily from home, this would no doubt be useful.
Meanwhile, we’ve been trying to deal with the conflict between my combined need and desire to do certain out of the house stuff at all hours, and the need for me to be home by 6:00 PM at the latest as much as possible. I’m not sure how other people do it, as it would be ideal for me to be home by 5:00 each day so the kids don’t melt down before supper is ready.
When she’s not charmed and amused by my artist-like habits, Deb is driven crazy by them. Can’t say as I blame her, even as it’s tough to be any other way.
The fourth tip, well, never really been an issue. Oddly enough, Sadie seems to have a sense that she should be quiet or go off by herself if the phone rings for me. The way my office is configured, sound from the rest of the house is baffled even if the door is open, as long as they aren’t actually in the office. Which Sadie also seems to have a sense of minimal invasiveness about. She’s funny like that.
As for number 5, good idea, except if I am home it’s more likely to be something wolfed down at the desk.
Ah, and number 6… heh. I never needed to ask that. We routinely e-mail each other within the house. And if I am doing intense, close the door work, all the more so. It’s just plain convenient.
Other tips? Good question. I think you have to be willing to be a little flexible, which makes it easier for everyone to accept it when you really need to be left alone. I’d say even with door-open work, everyone needs to be aware when to let you concentrate on the task you are enaged in. For me it’s writing and other creative or technical things that can involve concentration, inspiration, or being “in the zone.” Sometimes I can write an e-mail response to a client having a problem and hold a conversation at the same time. Sometimes the distraction makes me lose entirely what I was saying and changes the nature of the response. Sometimes “flow” matters terribly. Sometimes it doesn’t so much.
I go back and forth on the whole home office thing. Given the nature of my work, I will always need one to some degree. The discussion has been whether to go exclusively home, or go more completely home but with some office space somewhere, but not necessarily where and how much it is now.
There are days I’m ready to say “I just can’t do this!” and make sure I always have an office out of the house and spend more time at it than I do now. There are other days when I can’t believe I’m still spending any money for a “real” office, no matter how nice it is to have an air conditioned place to take us all on the hottest days.
So. What are your tips for working at home, with or without kids?
Monday, August 28, 2006
Crazy Dream
This makes my having a dream last night in which I met and talked with Ted Kennedy all the more fascinating.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
DreamHost Strikes Again
I have a business domain that I sooner or later need to have hosted and start moving with for real.
Based on reputation, price and specs, I attempted to host it with DreamHost. The alternative in mind was GoDaddy, but they have some unexpected limitations.
I got through the signup and they rejected me for suspected credit card fraud, which was completely whacky. After not-too-seriously considering jumping through their hoops and faxing an image of the card to their billing people, I asked them to cancel my order. They said:
Your account was disabled for fraud so there is nothing to cancel. The only way to activate your account will be by fax.
Okay, fine, so no business ever transpired between us.
At least as a temporary measure, I’ve been trying to add that domain to my elhide.com account with Hosting Matters. When I do, it keeps telling me my domain “is owned by another user.” I just now finally put in a support request for that.
Since that didn’t work and I know I’d eventually want it on its own host and all that, I decided to try DreamHost again. Just not for as large a plan or as long a timeframe this time.
At the end of the signup DreamHost gives me this error:
“This domain “thedomaininquestion.com” is already in our system!
Please contact support if you’d like to do something with it and you don’t know how.”
Aw jeez.
Their initial, admittedly instant, reply to my missive indicated they didn’t really know what I was talking about. They’re on the same page now, but jeez. If HM can fix the problem on their end, I’ll just setup shop there until I don’t fit anymore.
And I don’t think I will ever again entertain the notion of putting anything with DreamHost.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
What Is It?
Deb asked what this was, after Sadie had shown way too much interest in it earlier, and I didn’t know so I took a picture like a good blogger. I recognize it as nothing edible, but that’s just a broad “what it isn’t” that’s not a big help beyond basic wild food safety.
It’s sort of a vine-like, weedy plant climbing the suckers at the base of one of the trees our cars nose up to in the driveway.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Drip… Drip… Drip…
That is what I am sitting here, listening to while Windows 2003 installs on a server in the other room. The HVAC guy just left.
I found three of the ceiling tiles adjacent to the AC unit rather well soaked, so there had to be a service call. The condensation drain pipe had plugged, as apparently is common, causing the overflow. Lucky, I was… when he poked a hole in the worst tile it spouted water down into a trash barrel for a few minutes. I’d have had one wet office. This seems to happen a lot here.
Anyway, I have to leave the AC off and he’ll be back in the morning. It’s an excuse to make improvements to the drainage pipe from that unit. If I hadn’t already propped open the office door to let the Taiwan pesticide fumes out, I’d have needed to do so to keep it cool.
Until it stops or I leave, I just have to listen to the residual water drip. In theory it should stop after a while…
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Also On August 19th…
Today would have been the 100th birthday of my father’s father, unless I’ve had his year of birth wrong for all the years.
It would also have been my brother’s 33rd anniversary with his first wife, who knocked him up just before he turned 18, had they stayed married, but we don’t need to talk about that.
If I recall correctly, my grandfather was 84 when he died. I keep thinking he was 86, but that can’t be because of where I lived at the time. In any event, here are a couple of pictures. In the first one, he’s in the middle, with guys he worked with, probably on a farm. In the second one, he’s in my uncle’s van at an Ellis family reunion at Green Provicial Park in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Well They Tell Me I Was Born There…
As we continue the tour of scenic Star’s Hollow Middleboro, here’s a not very good set of pictures of the boarded up hospital formerly known as St. Lukes, which is where I careened heedlessly into the world on my mother’s 26th birthday, unaware what I was in for.
The first and third pictures are brightened, and the first, just in case, has smudged license plates, which are something that will happen without mention in other pictures as appropriate.
I didn’t go up onto Oak Street to get a good picture of the long side of the building. That’s where it looks most shamefully empty. Every time we go by it we talk about how sad that something isn’t being done with it. Someone was trimming growth as we walked by, so I wondered if that was a good sign.
My first doctor when I was a baby and for my first several years was located in a house-like building near this place. He also delivered the landlord’s wife, I learned when I used the “born in Middleboro” card while trying to ensure that we, not anyone else, would be rented this apartment.
The building looks so little to me now! It seemed so big when I was a kid, when we visited my aunt when she was having her gallbladder removed.
Of Trains And History
We walked a couple miles yesterday, and I remembered to take the camera along. This was not enough for Sadie, so she also played in the sandbox for a while afterward, then went with me and hung out in and around the server room and an attorney’s office while I did some work. She is soooo good, being able to do that. Though the lollipop I snagged her from the reception desk didn’t hurt.
This set is the view from two bridges over the railroad tracks looking roughly north, then from adjacent to another bridge looking roughly south. This is the trainyard area near enough to us to fill the apartment with diesel fumes when certain engines idle there, viewed from opposite directions.
In the first pictures, the more spiffed up looking stretches are the ones used by the MBTA commuter rail, which terminates not far beyond these bridges.
The third picture is retouched, brightened 15% because the camera was acting up. Though not as much as it did later, when it corrupted several pictures and ruined my getting a complete war memorial set. The card has now been reformatted and we’re going to order a new, higher capacity one.
In that last picture, the decrepit building to the left of the tracks is the old C.P. Washburn building. I’d noticed they were no longer open for business, but I had no idea why. This is significant because when I was growing up, when they also had a store near us in Halifax, right beside the same railroad tracks, they were the oldest continuously operated family business in America. Besides being a long separate branch of the same Washburn family my father’s mother was from.
This post made me look into it and I learned what happened:
As the survey progressed, we were, of course, eager to learn which is the oldest existing family business in America. The answer seemed easy: the C.P. Washburn Company (1632) of Middleborough, Massachusetts. Then came the crushing news: on November 1, 1998, The Boston Globe reported the company’s untimely demise. Charles P. Washburn IV, a member of the 11th generation, was apparently unable to pay $120,000 in back taxes and the town closed the company’s doors, bringing an end to a noble family business that got its start as a granary in nearby Duxbury, long before this country became a nation.
In the course of this, I also came across an interesting list of historic sites for Middleboro and other towns in Plymouth County.
Another Washburn building is among those historic sites, as is basically the entire part of town where we live, which includes the post office, which is itself a distinct historic site, which would fit with my taking a picture of it because it looks so cool.
As the above implies, there will be more pictures, including a war memorial curiosity I managed to photograph, even though I didn’t collect the complete set. Stay tuned…
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Them’s The Brakes
So I’m driving along in the truck today and something weird keeps happening, like the brakes are engaging without any human intervention. I have these visions of brake or transmission problems, but I’m trying to figure out exactly what it might be. It feels hauntingly familiar.
Then I had an “aha!” moment and looked for where the cruise control is controlled. There it is, where I can’t see it through the steering wheel, flipped to “on.”
It was hauntingly familiar because it was the feel of brakes engaging by themselves when controlled by cruise control, trying to keep the car’s speed down to the specified number. Whatever it might have believed that to be, since we never “use” cruise control. I don’t think I even used it to speak of when driving across the country.
Looks like it’s remarkably easy to engage by accident. Always a good automotive design feature.
Locomotive Bad Breath
Anyone know who we would contact to ask about the now almost daily idling trains filling our apartment with exhaust fumes for hours on end and making us sick?
We were hoping this would be the last apartment, and we just love the place, but we’re talking about moving because of the exhaust. It was one thing when once every few weeks a train with bad exhaust idled at length. Now it’s as if they’re using primarily trains with bad exhaust.
By comparison, you’ve all driven behind a diesel truck. Maybe you’d rather not be there, but hey, it’s sometimes, and it’s not that bad. But then you’ve also driven behind one of those diesel trucks; the ones you can’t understand still being on the road; the ones that make you have to drive 90 and pass before you stop breathing, or else slow way down and back off half a mile or more so it dissipates before it reaches you.
Those are rare. Now imagine if every other truck you encountered was suddenly one of the bad ones. You would be wondering what the hell was going on.
So it is with the trainyard and the idling stinkers. If we can get to winter, we can deal until spring, but there’s no way we can take another summer of this.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Da Girls
So what I’d really like is to spend my weekend with these two:
But I mostly have to spend it with these two:
Oh well. And off to it…
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Smart Car!
The Sentra prevented me from taking everyone to the office to be comfortably air conditioned today.
Well… sometime in the 1:00 - 2:00 hour, power went out to the entire town where the office is (and possibly more spottily some surrounding areas), and shows no signs of being restored. Sadly, I was also unable to go to the bank and make my deposit I deferred yesterday rather than venture out when it was 100+ and ultra-humid.
If the car had worked, we’d have had to return home early anyway.
I ventured up there because I needed to go to the bank, hoping the outage wasn’t that widespread (it’s a three mile drive from the office), and we left some stuff there that we needed at home. The idea was I’d check the servers if power had returned, or hang out a while in case, but given how severe it was, waiting would have been as futile as last night, when the power came back on after 11:00, 5 - 6 hours after going out. Not to mention that today’s expected thunderstorms haven’t arrived yet.
Smart car. Like it knew going would be pointless.
Death With Dignity
I’d been hoping to keep the Sentra going through September, when its inspection sticker expires. Nor was I sure it would fail the safety inspection, so it might have been fine for longer.
Yesterday it developed - or made clear that it had been developing - a fuel leak. That might explain the reduced mileage and altered performance it’s been experiencing for months. (Google U. also says it might be an oxygen sensor or something like that, for some of the behavior.)
On the driver’s side, a little ahead of the rear wheel, up near the gas tank, there are what appear to be multiple fuel lines that disappear and then presumably get to the front of the car somehow. Up where I can’t really see or reach without a better jack or lift, it dribbles gas down onto the lower bits of gas line and the ground below. Last night on the damp driveway it showed up as a trail of circular silvery slicks up behind the left side of the car.
It’s impressive enough that I’m not sure I’d dare drive the car much farther than the service station around the corner. It doesn’t leak at all when the car isn’t running.
Anyway, if we take it to a shop, they’ll probably want to replace the whole fuel line, if not more, and charge a bunch of money. If I could get it jacked up far enough, or on a lift, it’s likely even I could patch it. Perhaps one of my brothers or my nephew could bring a jack over and help me out, and we’ll have a reprieve, but despite that, it’s time.
The poor Sentra is coming up on 19 years old. I’ve owned it for 10 1/2 years of the almost 28 years I’ve been driving, and 104,000 of its 155,000 miles. It’s been as reliable and low cost as you could ever dream of having a car be. I love that car more than anyone probably should; it’s just a car, after all. Even now it starts right up and if you don’t mind trailing absurd amounts of gas and smelling it in the car, it can get you where you’re going rather well. You could probably take out the engine, transplant it to another body, give it a tuneup and replace some of the rustier exterior bits, and run it another 100,000+ miles. The body is dying, though. It’s earned its rest. But it feels like having the family dog put to sleep.
So we’ll be looking for a replacement starting as early as next week; at least something temporary. We’re not sure there won’t be need for a vehicle that holds three carseats down the line, so we’ve been assuming needing a van or SUV. However, my brother had a rental car, not even full size, that would hold three, so such things exist. It even got 34 MPG, which compares favorably with the almost 30 MPG the Sentra usually got prior to the last several months. For now we don’t strictly require anything larger than the Sentra.
We’re trying to avoid payments (though that option is available in a pinch), and assuming something used will promptly need a grand of work. The Sentra was $2000 and immediately needed $400, though that was the last it needed for a long time. The van was $2500 and immediately needed $1400, but that turned out to be merely the start for that traitorous moneysink. I can afford something in the $1000 - $2000 range as early as next week (preferably lower rather than higher for a couple of reasons), so we’ll be asking people to keep an eye out for the proverbial friend or family getting rid of a car cheap kind of thing.
Luckily, it’s at least a few weeks before there’s anywhere we all need to be at the same time. As far as we know or can anticipate.
After discussing it, though, we’re pretty well set on death with dignity for the venerable old car. If it runs with a cheap-as-possible patch, cool, and we could use the little bit more time, but basically it’s done. No more money for repairs beyond a few bucks for do-it-yourself parts.
On a less somber note, I’d forgotten how much stuff I had in the trunk. I felt like one of those clowns with the endless handkerchiefs. To get at the jack I removed:
Pack & play
Two folding chairs we take to cookouts so we still have nowhere to sit
Tool bag
Husky socket set
Cheap driver set
Gas can
Air tank
Battery charger
Tarp in unopened package
Hammer
Hatchet
Hacksaw
Bow saw
Collapsible mini snow shovel
12-pack of cherry Fresca
Not removed from the trunk were the spare tire, a couple ponchos, a blanket, light sticks, several quarts of oil, several containers of other automotive fluids and sprays, empty gallon container, old battery, emergency belt kit, emergency hose repair kit, other stuff I’m forgetting. Not like I could restart civilization out of the trunk, but add to it my briefcase and I’d be well on my way to emergency camping. For proper bugout/emergency I’d want the knives from the briefcase, some clothes, food, and maybe a few other odds and ends.
For a tiny car the trunk holds an insane amount of stuff. I’d almost be as happy to have another car, because in a van or SUV I’d miss the trunk. Guess we’ll see what happens.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Moving Day
Well, this should be interesting. After having trouble renting it, the landlord showed the apartment to a couple with a young girl, probably not much older than Sadie, and a day later came and took down the for rent sign. Right on schedule, it looks like the yard is full of vehicles.
Most of the people we saw them showing the place to were of the “you’re kidding” variety, but that last couple seemed perfect. Fingers are crossed.
Update:
Then again, one of the vehicles is an SUV, and the other one is a ladder-laden paint truck with a couple of painters sitting almost stock still, union or highway department worker-like, on the tailgate, looking off into the distance. I’m confuzzled. My guess is they are waiting for the arrival of stuff to help move, and are proverbially on their way to work otherwise. But who knows.
Laterer:
Weird. That amounted to absolutely nothing. All I can figure is maybe the dude moving in does painting, had just gotten the key, and was doing a walk around while his guys waited.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Death By Stubborn
Speaking of the heat, my grandmother examplifies why a surprising amount of the elderly dropping like flies in heat waves might be, in a manner of speaking, voluntary.
She’s had many air conditioners over the years, using them seldom, usually ostensibly because the unit in question had died. Her most recent one came from me a couple years ago.
At the big “we only get to see my brother’s kids once or twice a year so it’s a fine time to forget the camera” cookout at my grandmother’s Sunday, she stayed in the house per normal, with three or four fans going. Compared to some days, it was pretty comfortable, but still, it was brutal in there.
I almost piped up and asked her why she wasn’t running the air conditioner. I wish I had, because I’d probably have given her heck if the reason was anything other than “it’s dead.”
It’s not. Come to find out later she is flatly refusing to run the AC. Absolutely Will. Not. Do. It. My mother, I am told, is furious. She lives there too, and is also old enough that she should be extra careful. She ought to be furious. It’s moronic to have the AC and refuse to use it!
I’m not sure how much of this is wailing and gnashing over the potential electric bill, like running four fans is going to be any better, and how much of this is imagining she’s still young, healthy, and didn’t need no damn AC back in her day. Someone who shows and describes for me the same picture three times in under two minutes is starting to be in no shape to decide that something like AC is icky modern voodoo she shouldn’t use. Then again, I could see her refusing just to irritate my mother.
Sheesh. I wonder how many homes of the elderly this plays itself out in these conditions around the country.
So if my grandmother dies this week, I’ll be sad - extremely sad, end of an era sad - but it will probably have been a self-inflicted death by stubborn.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Smelly Trains
One of the odd downfalls of where we live is, sometimes, the trains. Mostly it’s cool, having a big trainyard right here. Then there are times like last night…
You know those trucks you get behind on the road that have particularly foul exhaust; the “how did that pass inspection” kind of exhaust that requires you either drop far behind, pass immediately, or be airtight enough for LEO, lacking only a launch vehicle?
There are train engines just like them, and they will sit in the trainyard idling for an hour or four periodically. Filling our apartment with toxic fumes. Especially my office and Sadie and Val’s room, courtesy of position plus window fans.
Sadie got to stay up for an extra hour past the already late time she was going to bed, else she’d have been shut in an exhaust-filled room. At least with everything open, it can dissipate better. I ended up in the bedroom reading, rather than working on billing. The fumes were making me sick to my stomach in the office.
Eventually we heard the train power up and rumble off, and within a half hour the fumes were entirely gone. The bad thing is that another train briefly did the same thing around 4 AM. Enough for me to wake and notice, anyway. Sheesh.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Some Surprises Are Pleasant
Whatever I can say about Verizon’s goofy installation of our FiOS, it did achieve one thing: lower phone bill.
With DSL and unlimited “Freedom” calling, our bill was $102 and change.
When we signed up for FiOS, the same calling plan was being offered for considerably less, but for some reason I thought FiOS broadband would be the same or $5 higher. Maybe it’s a promotional rate and I’m forgetting they said that. I only remember the low calling plan and the waived installation fee ($70, as I recall, which is low for the minimum of two hours it takes; generally 4 - 6 hours), because they really want to get it rolled out widely. Gives them a ready market when they launch FiOS TV in this town, and I figure they’re employing guys to do these “last mile” installs whether they get solidly booked with orders or not.
Anyway, it’s $76.71 for a month, and only $19.95 of that is designated as internet. Nice. I wasn’t sure what the deal was from the last bill, which was $78. I thought is was for a partial month on the old plan, but it may have been part of a month of one and part of a month the other. I just assumed the bill would have been higher for a whole month, thus waiting until now to see.
Yay for saving money!
Monday, July 17, 2006
You Know It’s Hot Here When…
You wake up at 6:30 and don’t even bother to try going back to sleep, it’s already feeling that oppressive.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Dreams and Stuff
A funny thing has been happening because we live so near a train yard. It’s not so close that trains generally wake me up idling or passing through or whistling. However, it’s close enough that I’ll incorporate the sound and vibration into dreams, in the form of things like the building I’m dreaming a secret mission in shaking and starting to fall apart.
I can’t remember specific examples besides that, but I know I’ve had them, waking up and saying “oh, that’s a train sitting there idling.” Besides that, I seem to be having a lot of stress dreams. Even if I don’t remember them, it’s a telltale when I wake up with sore teeth from having clenched them too hard in my sleep.
One of these days I’ll remember to take the camera when we walk and I’ll get some train pictures. That and other things. We’re an easy walk from downtown, which is oddly touristy, for a not-really-tourist-destination town. There is a KOA campground about 1.3 miles from us, though, and at least three big hotels in or immediately bordering town. There are some war memorial pictures I want to take and share. You’ll see why when I post them.
You see things walking you might miss by car. Especially if you seldom drive that way. There’s a little seafood restaurant a couple minutes walk from us. Oddly, they close at 6:00 PM. I have to pop in and see if they have takeout menus, or just try them, one of these days. There’s a miniature Benny’s downtown; something I’d forgotten since I last went in there 35 or 36 years ago. There’s even a tiny middle eastern restaurant! Which is also a French bakery and coffee shop. (Speaking of which, there’s a quaint little retail space in Bridgewater center that’s been vacant, which is now going to be an Indian takeout restaurant. People have told me for years I must try Indian food. Good place for it, in a college town, walking distance from all the dorms.) About every third store is antiques.
But I digress.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
History
This is my father when he was young. Young enough to have hair! He lost his mighty early. I am amazed how much he reminds me of my cousins Wally and Chad. Not to mention my brother and my oldest nephew.
In the wagon are my late aunt Joan and my aunt Jean, who gave me a copy of this picture, of which this is a digital photo. A scan would be better, but this was expedient. I’m not sure how old they all were, but my father was already well beyond they age when he had polio.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Notes to Self
When you think you have been invited to a cookout, verify that it is indeed a cookout and not merely a cake and ice cream birthday party. When in doubt, definitely don’t go on an empty stomach, and make sure Sadie doesn’t.
If the time a cookout/birthday party is supposed to start is supplied to you more than a few days ahead of time, you might want to double-check, say, the day before, so being an hour late doesn’t place you there early.
At least on the back of your neck, you sunburn more easily than your daughter. Might want to have the sunscreen in the car, and not just for her sake. (Aloe gel rocks, but better not to need it.) No need to encourage any of your moles or skin tags to mutate into action, even if the doctor is keeping an eye on them.
Doctor Stuff Revisited
We have a birthday party to attend at noon or so, so I need to make this quick. Heck, I haven’t even selected which of the toys I recently bought for the purpose will go with us for the nephew in question.
I had my checkup yesterday. My blood pressure was awesome. My weight stayed the same. That is, inexplicably high after a suddent spike months ago, but at least not higher than last time. Apparently I need to lose weight so my BP can go up like Deb’s. Heh. I go back in four months, then in eight months for the second annual physical I will have had with my doctor since starting with him I think it was four years ago.
He was alarmed to hear about Sadie’s apparent hip injury that has mostly stopped evidencing itself since I attempted to get in to see him. She would probably have earned herself X-rays, based on my description. He was concerned he never got a message about it, and that is where the trick lies.
He has six official “sick visit” openings per day, and then piles freely on top of those, which is why he’s always running behind (case in point; my 10:30 appointment got me in there after 12:00).
He seems to consider Sadie a particular VIP, which made it worse.
So. The trick is to leave a message directed at him saying it’s me, Sadie’s father, and here’s what’s happening. Then he will call back and will make sure we get in if needed. Plus if it’s Jane, the regular receptionist, things should be easier.
The doctor also thinks I should write a book. About my life, and how it centers around computers and how we met because of that and have a happy marriage and two beautiful kids. I think the “happy marriage” part is what astonishes him. I think he’s become cynical about such things.
Anyway, next time it shouldn’t be a problem to get her in. Yay.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Happy Birthday, Dad.
I know Jay mentioned earlier that it’s my father’s birthday today, but I wanted to note it, too, since this blog owes its existence to him, really (well, apart from the whole giving-me-half-my-DNA thing, which is a given, no?). If he hadn’t taught me the fine art of yelling at TV anchors and being pissed at politicians when I was a kid, I’d likely have never started a blog. Can you even imagine how different my life would be if I hadn’t?
Thanks, Dad. And happy birthday.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
A Walk On The Howland Side
This is my great-grandmother, Sarah “Sadie” Margaret Tranmer nee Howland. She died in April 1971,around the time I turned 10. Which means she lived to be just short of 75; younger than I always thought. These are great pictures, exactly as I remember her, reflecting her personality. Reportedly she was a real wise-ass, could cut you to ribbons with her tongue, but would do anything to help you if you needed it.
She married James Edmund Tranmer, and they had six kids, my grandmother, Hazel Margaret, being the oldest. The others were Richard, Natalie, Ellery, Winona, and Shirley. Besides my grandmother, only her sister Winnie and one cousin, Dutchy, remain alive out of that generation.
My great grandfather was a rogue, so besides who knows how many local “milkman” spawn, he hopped the train, ran off and had more than one other family, including one in Connecticut that’s been in touch with my mother to compare information. He reportedly was involved in early computer systems for the government.
More stuff about Howland genealogy, at some length, follows the pictures…
So last night I’m going through these pictures I took of sheets of pictures my mother got from some relatives who are also part of the whole Howland lineage. Forever it’s been “known” that one of the Howlands married a Wampanoag indian woman, and she’s one of my ancestors a few generations back. Most recently my understanding was she’d have been my great-great-great grandmother. Yet looking at what I had on record for names, that would have made her Philena Haskins, which sounded not like an indian’s name. I called to ask my mother more about it, and she thought her name might have been Keturah, married to Malachi Howland, one generation back from Seth Howland, who was born in 1789) and Philena Haskins (who was his second wife). Trouble is, you go back too far and it’s not possible to have a picture like this:
Which may or may not be the ancestor in question, and may or may not be an indian ancestor in the Ashley line instead.
So I enthusiastically found Malachi Howland and Keturah, whose name in this case was Howland because they were cousins, not boding well for the indian idea. I gave my mother their entire lineage, available easily online, back to 1481. Then I poked around more and got suspicious about the fact that those two were listed as having no kids, not to mention that they moved from Middleboro to Manhattan, and that meant the lineage had to make its way back to Massachusetts. I found evidence that they had one daughter, but that’s it.
Later I found a near-match of our own lineage that I could match us to, with a totally different path up the Howland lineage to the same place. Starting with my great-grandmother’s parents and going down the generations of paternal parentage, that one went:
Seth A. Howland
Emily Martha Ashley
Seth Howland
Philena Haskins (2nd wife; 1st wife was Abigail Ashley, Seth A. was youngest of a grand total of 15 children)
Joshua Howland
Abigail Pierce (see paragraph below)
Joshua Howland
Mary Allen
Joshua Howland
Elizabeth Holloway (one source had her spelled Halloway, which is apparently wrong)
Samuel Howland
Mary Sampson
Henry Howland Jr
Mary Newland
Henry Howland Sr
Margaret Aires
John Howland
Emma Revell
John Howland
Agnes Greenway
John Howland b.1481
Agnes Agnette
The trouble is, if I went to the seemingly better source on overall Howland lineage up to a few generations ago, or less, depending, and come down from the top, I came up to the third Joshua being married to Phebe Chase, so I thought my conclusion was wrong. I also thought I had too long a break between a couple of the generations. However, it turned out that Phebe Chase was third Joshua Howland’s first wife, with whom he had four girls, including that same Keturah who married Malachi, and the online source I was treating as particularly comprehensive and authoritative made no mention of his second wife, Abigail Pierce, and their one child, the first Seth Howland. As for the dates, I’d noted them wrong when trying to get it straight on paper. In reality it all fits fine. Which allowed me to stop demonstrating, to Deb’s amusement, where Sadie might possibly have inherited her obsessive tendencies.
I still have no idea which one was an indian. If there was a picture, even a tintype, it couldn’t have been too far back. My great-grandmother had a picture displayed in her house, and I believe my mother said she claimed it was her grandmother or great-grandmother. Which would be Philena Haskins or Abigail Pierce, if it’s in the Howland lineage.
Finally, finishing off this post I started yesterday morning, here is my grandmother, daughter of my great-grandmother pictured near the top of the post, at the age of 11, and then 79 years later, this past Sunday, with Sadie looking as she talks with my brother-in-law’s mother, not pictured.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Call Me Any Any Time… Or Not?
When we go to our family doctor, we wait hours and hours to get in an see him, with the consolation being that when we have an emergency, we too will be able to get in and see him while other people wait.
And so it is that after 13 minutes on hold with not the normal nurse-receptionist or even the backup nurse-receptionist, we have an appointment at 2:15 for Sadie with not-our-doctor.
Total bullshit.
Absolute total bullshit.
And I didn’t think to ask if we could see him tomorrow instead. We’re sure she didn’t ask him if he’d fit us in. It’ll be all of a three minute visit, ending in either “looks like she buised her hipbone” or that kind of thing and “give her some ibuprofen and it’ll heal in a couple weeks,” or else “go see the specialist.”
Some random person filled in reception and didn’t know us. Or our doctor. Apparently it’s all well and good for him to have a policy of “call me!” It just goes completely astray in execution, especially when there are surrogate minions.
Anyway, after I made the appointment, and after I started typing this, we got sufficiently concerned and, well, angry, that I called back and canceled. Gave the reason of preferring to see our own doctor, and disconnected before the at least friendlier-this-time surrogate minion could verify he also has no openings tomorrow.
So what is wrong with Sadie anyway? Probably nothing that a little time and ibuprofen can’t cure. It’s borderline on whether to bother having it looked at; I just decided I ought to err on the side of caution, and it was worth spending yet another $25 for peace of mind and guidance. Of course, the tone of the reception drone initially was “have you been beating your kid?” Which was one of the factors weighed in deciding whether to take her. It’s obvious we haven’t, and our doctor would never dream of suspecting it or taking that tone. He’s the one who joked about seeing her for stitches under the chin when she manifested as an unstoppable climber.
The problem manifested itself in diaper changes. I lay her in the bassinet, unhook the diaper, and grab usually her right leg to lift her butt up to wipe her clean. She’s never been thrilled by the grab a leg thing, but it works.
Starting a few days ago, that made her scream in pain. She didn’t even seem to like to lay flat. Either leg, but more the right. If you lay her down flat now she cringes in anticipation, which makes us wonder if some of the reaction is not liking it because it used to hurt even if now not so much.
We’ve tried bending the leg and hip, prodding all over the place, trying to see if there was a locus of pain. Closest I came to a result prodding was one side of her lower back down near the hip.
Almost forgot; she seems to be pained by it if the diaper is fastened too tight, and the same few days ago she started fighting being put into the normal position and strapped into her car seat, almost as if it was hurting her. Not the agony of the grab leg and lift butt thing, but apparent discomfort that she gets over or tolerates enough to ride fine.
She had no obvious difficulties or changes to behavior. She can still walk, run, climb, stomp… but last night she was having clear difficulty climbing into and out of her chair at the kitchen table, even needing help. She falls in the tub and thinks nothing of it. She sits and bends her legs in the same ways that bother her if we have her on her back trying to identify the problem. I think I caught a slight limp earlier, and maybe there’s a little reversion to pointing her toes inward, but it’s hard to say. Mostly she’s fine. It’s very strange and subtle. Clearly not a broken bone, for instance. If it weren’t for the diaper changing hysteria, we’d suspect nothing. And the hysteria is clearly pain-induced. Or maybe “memory of pain” induced, in some part.
It’s probably a pulled muscle or deep bruise that doesn’t show on the surface, and will simply fade away. It’s the kind of thing that I wouldn’t take myself to a doctor for, but Sadie can’t really tell us what we’d like to know about it, and I decided to take advantage of the “family practice” pitch for once, to reassure us.
If it still bothers her when I have my appointment next week, I’ll bring it up then, maybe bring her with me for the day anyway. And I’ll chat with the doctor about what exactly the “call me” policy means and what I should expect from the minions guarding his gates.
Meanwhile, I do hope she stops falling and banging off of and into things so much.
Senioritis?
To me this isn’t a senior moment, but an ordinary moment that makes me rue having certain of my mothers genes, or something. Though not with coffee cups. I tend to use a currently favored, usually oversized, cup over and over, day after day, so no room for grabbing a second cup in there.
However, there is the problem of forgetting whether I already sweetened it, if you distract me for the slightest bit of time before the whole sweetening and lightening process is completed.
On a scarily related note, the night before last I had a dream, or more accurately a nightmare, in which I showed unmistakable indication of developing Alzheimer’s. I’ll take the senior moments and the “doh!” slips of the brain (like pouring soad into the coffee instead of a glass, for instance), but please, not that. Never that.
Monday, June 26, 2006
This is going to be a problem…
There are nice men here working on the gutters or something today.
Since they needed not merely an electrical outlet, but one with a surface close by to set their rechargable power tools on, guess whose extension cord that powers phone and internet got unplugged by Joe Random Worker. Because even though there are two lovely outlets near the door - heck, four outlets, two of them not associated with a specific apartment - we have a washer and dryer that are easily confused for workbenches.
So off goes the internet. Again. They might have unplugged us if it hadn’t been just a random extension cord, but an obvious-connected-to-Verizon-equipment power cord. Then again, maybe not. The fact is, they shouldn’t have done it either way, just as sure as I shouldn’t have to use an extension cord to power the Verizon stuff.
Deb plugged us back in and moved their tools to the neighboring laundry machines, but internet didn’t come back, so I went down, not having correctly understood what she did, which was to leave them alone and plug us back into the 3rd floor power temporarily. All I saw was that our extension cord was unplugged, again I thought, so I unplugged them, plugged us back in, and duct-taped it thoroughly to dissuade people, which I’d already thought of doing, but only on the other end.
To my surprise, I found the Verizon cord plugged into the 3rd floor and so I plugged it back into the extension cord, duct-taping that. On coming back upstairs I learned Deb had done that, rather than disrupting the workers, so I changed it back, but it will be taped after they leave and we move it back.
It managed to come back on after I was done, reset the router and rebooted the computer. It’s really not acceptable to have to keep doing that because Verizon FiOS installations to apartment buildings in places like Middleboro totally suck in taking the, you know, apartment aspect into account. If you have DSL you might want to stick with it if you do not own the building or have solid control over where the service might be connected and powered.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Verizon’s Ears Are Burning
Today was our second outage since we’ve had FiOS, the fiber optic internet service from Verizon. At least this time didn’t require a call to support, but then if they’d not blown me off in regard to my “and oh by the way...” last time, or not installed in a blatently moronic way in the first place, today would not have happened either.
See, when we got our Verizon FiOS fiber optic phone and internet service installed in Middleboro, Massachusetts (if that sounds stilted and overly much info, it’s for the sake of search engines), in a multi-family dwelling, which is to say, a building of apartments on different floors, the dickhead installer, who seemed great at the time, plugged the power unit into an outlook that was clearly marked 3rd floor. That despite knowing intimately that the installation was for the 2nd floor.
You would think that Verizon and its installers would carefully investigate, consult, ask in regard to what apartment’s power is which, and ensure nobody’s getting plugged into the wrong place. He never mentioned it, and I figured if he didn’t mention it, it was a non-issue. Heck, my understanding was that the service would actually have to be plugged into power in my apartment and a place would have to be made for it near where the phone service enters. Except it enters the cellar. Where the most easily usable outlet belonged to the 3rd floor, because the 1st floor’s spare outlet the landlord plugged the legally mandated carbon monoxide detector into, the 2nd floor’s spare outlet was occupied by a drop cord and the washing machine power cord covered the “2nd fl” label. On the other hand, the 3rd floor was vacant so there weren’t even laundry machines making the outlets harder to access, never mind their being in use.
How hard would it really have been to come up here and ask about where it should be plugged in? How many other places are going to be left with Verizon-induced tenant-tenant or landlord-tenant encounters of the “hey, you’re stealing electricity” kind? Verizon needs to deal with this, and they need to train their otherwise okay support people not to sound like slack-jawed yokels unaware that installation staff can plug the power into the wrong place and that this just might constitute a problem. The support person was like “whaddaya want us to do about it?” Thought I should just string an extension cord because that’s all the install person would probably do if he had to come back. He thought we should be happy that it had power at all, as that’s the important thing.
So back to our outage today. I was giving some doubtful benefit that the outage was an outage, considering the nasty weather. I tried all the usual in-the-house troubleshooting. Then I went to the cellar.
I knew as soon as I saw our hall light was out that the landlord had been here and was probably the problem. We have a 23 watt flourescent in our hall fixture that is super bright and lights the entire stairwell enough to make it safer all around. I leave it on at all times, figuring it’s not costly (I didn’t at first; the 3rd floor people started turning and leaving on ours instead of theirs so I gave up). As far as I know, it is our electricity running it, since there are fixtures logically associated with each apartment, and I am certain there is no “common areas” electric supplied by the landlord on its own meter. Which makes me wonder who pays for the power to the outside light and the cellar lights. My guess is the first floor, and I try to act accordingly. Whenever the landlord comes in to do anything, as has naturally been happening more with the 3rd floor vacant, he turns off our hall light. Probably reflex.
Sure enough, the thing we’d been half expecting had happened: The landlord noticed something plugged into the 3rd floor’s power that didn’t belong and unplugged it. And someone had silenced the alarm that sounds when it’s on battery, from the unit at the opposite end of the cellar. Cute.
This is exactly what I tried to tell Airbrain Dude in Verizon FiOS support would happen if the situation wasn’t corrected. We would be unplugged and service would be down. It was so tempting to call support to have them send someone out Right Now when we got unplugged, but I got out my super nice long extension cord and strung that over from our own outlet. Yay. We’re back.
So hey, if we get any readers who are with Verizon, you might want to check out what procedures exist for powering FiOS service in apartments where there are “that’s not my outlet” issues. It really does matter. Duh.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
The Best Rained-On Plans
My poor mother has the worst luck planning big events.
In the summer of 2004, she planned a “family reunion” that primarily doubled as a “wedding reception” for Deb and I, since we expressly wanted to avoid such things.
That had to be moved to the parish house of the church at the last minute, due to substantial rain and gloom. It also wasn’t something that could be rescheduled, as my cousin’s family was up from Texas.
Then there was Easter.
Last year the big Easter egg hunt never happened, if I recall correctly. Or maybe it took almost until June. Or maybe that was the year before.
This year it was delayed by rain two weeks. Easy to reschedule, for “some people have long range plans for almost every weekend” values of easy, but not possible to move inside.
So now we’re coming up on 90 years since June 24, 1916, so were we going to have a big birthday party for my grandmother on the 18th or the 25th? I was thinking the 18th, because at the time it was close enough to know it’d be perfect, if rather hot, weather, even though the weekend of the birthday might be more logical. My mother decided on the 25th, which was technically more logical and gave more preparation time.
Predictably enough, here’s the weather (emphasis added):
So I have no idea what’s going to happen. My first thought was “aw jeez, it’ll have to be postponed, but the next weekend is the holiday so that probably won’t work.” Then I remembered the parish house, but that depends on it not being used for anything else at the time. Or some other, similar place.
The 2nd would actually work for me, if it’s postponed. Originally I though I would be deploying new servers that weekend. All of it. Four non-stop days and hoping that was enough. Which may be what it takes, not counting advance prep and testing or trial run work. Since I had to wait for us to have a meeting about that and broader computer issues, it’ll have to be done on one of the other 3 or 4 day weekends later in July or August. Oh wait… I just doubt it’ll work for enough people to go with it. So yeah, it makes far more sense to find cover than to defer. I’ll have to call my mother and see what she has in mind or if she’s even noticed the forecast.
What luck.